The Van Horn .300 Savage barrel got another chance to shine tonight, and it did not disappoint.

A couple hours after darkness fell, two hogs showed up south of the house and kept circling a solar-lit feeder. They were quite leery of things and never made it in to the corn and protein, and after several minutes of watching through a thermal monocular, I decided I'd better make a move before they depart. There was barely any twilight, so I was about to turn on my red shooting light. Just before I did, however, the larger of the two bolted forward about 10 yards and stopped on a small incline, which put her in the outer fringes of the feeder light. Combined with the soft twilight, I had just enough detail to work with, which certainly simplified things for me as game can and will spook when detecting auxiliary lighting or the shadows it produces.

The hog was quartering to me at a hard angle, so I placed the red dot of the Docter 8x56 where it seemed the neck and lower chest cavity joined. At the shot, I was greeted by a solid sound of impact. I could not see the hog through my Docter, but grabbing the monocular, I saw a distinct and unmoving heat signal in the spot the hog last stood. I then scanned the surrounding to see if there was any sign of the other hog, but all I could see were deer bunched up between the house and the hog and a couple of raccoons that sought refuge in a hackberry tree.

The 150 grain Sierra Hollow Point Varminter did a fantastic job. It entered where I had hoped, wrecked the top of the heart while separating the pump from most of its plumbing, heavily damaged the lower portions of the lungs and crashed through the liver. However, I have not recovered it. My wand detector kept lighting up just beyond the last rib. Being hot, humid and unusually still tonight, I was sweating profusely and didn't expend much effort to find it. If I feel up to getting out to the gut pile in the morning, I'll see if the benefit of daylight allows the bullet's retrieval.

The MV of this load is 2484 fps. So far, it has done very well for me, but I would not want to push this one much faster. But as 30-30-type speeds, it works like a charm and hits with authority. I've relied primarily on the 125 grain Ballistic Tip and Accubond for years with this barrel and love their performance, but it's nice to know this Sierra can do the job at this velocity window. If it maintains this performance level on a few more hogs, I just might have to order another box or two!

Bobby--great to read your tales of moderate to mild loads that just knock 'em dead. Goes to show that shot placement is still about the most important part of knocking them down.

The only thing better would have been if the rifle would have been a 99.